We followed her through the front door and that was when she changed. Her hair was no longer pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she no longer wore running clothes. Instead, she was just as I remembered her the day that she took her life—the day that I took for granted seeing her ever again.
She moved in a sloth-like pace toward the couch. I tried to think of what this moment could be, praying that I wasn’t about to witness the end of her life. I didn’t think I was strong enough to handle it. Not after what I had already seen.
Val stepped to my side, no more out of breath than Jet or me. That was one good thing about being a soul—you could run forever and never grow tired. “This is it, Rowan. This is your mother’s final moment.”
I glanced at my mother and realized her slow movements and expressionless face for what it was. She’d already taken the pills, and now I was about to witness her final breaths.
Mom leaned back against the couch and propped her feet up. The horror of what I was about to witness froze me in place. Jet’s arms wrapped around my waist from behind.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Tears flowed freely from my eyes. I rubbed my hands slowly across his forearms as I watched my mother’s eyelids gradually grow heavier until they finally closed. A man appeared by her side dressed in black—her Reaper. I couldn’t see his face, but I did take a small sense of comfort in knowing that she wasn’t entirely alone. Her breath hitched and her body shook just before the man extended a fingertip to press against her forehead. And then, she was standing beside herself, staring down at her lifeless body in disbelief.
“You’ve made a mistake, Salene,” the man said to her in a sympathetic tone. “I’m sorry, but now you will have to reap the consequences.”
“This is it,” Val insisted, her eyes no longer flickering, but instead shining a vibrant violet. “Go to her now. She’s about to enter into her reflection period.”
Jet released me. “Go.”
Sadness echoed through that one word of his. It attached to the air in the room, making it heavier than what it should have been. This was it. This was the moment when I would have to choose my ultimate sacrifice—give up the one I loved to save my life and that of my father, or stay with the one I loved and forever remain as I was.
“Just go ahead,” Jet motioned. “Please.”
“Reach for her!” Val shouted.
If I did, then would that be it? Would I be able to say my goodbyes to Jet?
“I love you, Rowan,” Jet said, as though he were reading my mind. “But please, grab hold of her. If you don’t do it now, then we’ll have to go through everything all over again.”
I nodded. “I love you, too,” I whispered, just before I stepped forward and extended my hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Upon contact, an amazing brightness filled the room. I gasped and felt the warmth of her soul beneath my fingertips. The whiteness dulled and the shimmering of her soul ceased.
“Rowan?” she asked, sounding breathless and unsure.
“Mom,” I whispered as more tears slid down my face. Her arms wrapped around me, and for the first time in months, I was able to bury my face in her shoulder and inhale her scent like I’d wanted to every minute since she’d been gone.
“It’s really you.” Her voice caught somewhere between a whisper and a sob as she gripped me tighter. “I saw what happened, what my choice did to you…to your father. I’m so sorry, honey. If I had known, I wouldn’t have done it. I would have stayed and taken my place like I should have. I would have dealt with it all to save you.”
“I know… That’s why I’m here,” I said, pulling back from her slightly to stare into her eyes.
“Why you’re here?” she repeated, confusion creasing her brow.
I nodded. “I’m here to ask you to trade places with me…for you to take the position you were supposed to so I can have my life back.”
The words felt thick in my mouth. They sounded wrong. They sounded selfish, especially with Jet standing just a few feet away.
Mom’s green eyes lit up as they filled to the brim with tears. “How? Is that even possible? Can we really do that?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “It’s why I came here to find you.”
“Anything I have to do, I’ll do it if it will give you back your life and help save your father’s.” She squeezed my hands in hers and smiled, though her eyes were filled with sorrow and pain for what she had done—how she had gotten here.
I realized then that I didn’t know what we were supposed to do next. I’d found my mother, but what was I supposed to do now?
I glanced over my shoulder to Val. “How do we do this?”
“All you both have to do is accept,” she said.
Mom’s had brushed against my cheek softly. “Well, I do. I accept, of course I accept,” she said lovingly.
Jet shifted his weight, the movement drawing my attention back to him, as he shoved his hands deep into his front pockets. I found myself pulled back into the here and now, the heavy fog of happiness and excitement dissipating from my mind and allowing me once again to think about this from all angles.
I looked at Jet. His face was solemn, but he still managed a small smile for my benefit. Emotions transferred between us in the silence of the room, and I felt my heart break. A tiny piece of my soul began to die as the reality of what this moment truly was—the last time I would see him—sunk in. Panic jolted through me. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him just yet. I left my mother’s side to fling myself in his arms.
I closed my eyes after a few moments of enjoying the feel of him and shook my head. “I don’t want to say goodbye. I feel so selfish.”
“You’re not and I don’t want you thinking any differently,” he said.
A sob escaped my throat. “It’s not fair.”
“Since when has life or death ever been fair?” He chuckled, the sound of it echoing through me.
“I know. But what kind of life am I supposed to have without you?” I cried. “Why did you want to see me through this? How could you stand it? If our roles were reversed, I don’t think I could have.”
Jet hesitated in answering and then sighed loudly. “Because I could tell it was what you truly wanted—life, that is. Hell, it’s what all of us who are already dead want. The sad thing is we never realize it until it’s gone. I wanted to not only see you through all this—” He gestured to our surroundings and to my mother. “—but also to spend as much time with you as I possibly could before.” He paused and put a hand to my cheek. “I’d do anything to see you truly happy, Rowan, even help you achieve something that would take you away from me forever.”
My eyes bounced to his. I felt his heartache threaded into the syllables of his words, and they tugged at my soul. All I felt when I looked at him now was heartache and I hated it. I hated this place for taking away all of the love I’d had for Jet and replacing it with heartache and bittersweet pain in our final moments.
How could I leave him? I had only been what I am for a few months, but in that short time, I’d learned how lonely death could be. How could I condemn him to an eternity of that horrid loneliness without me? I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. His sadness mixed with mine and pulsated through my soul.
“Isn’t there any way that we could do the same for you? Can’t one of these souls here take your place as a Reaper?” I whispered between kisses, hopeful.
“I don’t think it works that way for me,” he answered, leaning his forehead against mine.
I closed my eyes tightly and leaned into him. “I wish it did.”
“Me too,” he whispered.
Val cleared her throat beside us. “You know the time frame for this to happen isn’t unlimited.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be fine. If you can remember, I was a Reaper before you,” he added with a forced smile.
Mom took my hand in hers. “Come on, honey.”
I clamped my lips together in the hopes o
f keeping in my sobs as I squeezed my mother’s hand and stepped away from Jet for the final time. I thought of my father, and the images of him drunk, broken, and lying on my bedroom floor flashed through my mind once more. I thought of Kami and how I wanted to right our friendship, to grasp with both hands the olive branch she had extended during the last little bit of my life.
I was staring into Jet’s sapphire blue eyes when the room suddenly went white. I gazed at him, knowing that I needed to accept, knowing that he wanted me to accept, but still I hesitated.
“Go, Rowan… Start over…live,” he pleaded. “For me.”
I smiled through my tears. “I will… I accept.”
Something happened the moment those final two words fell from my lips. The air around us constricted as the whiteness became flooded with color again. Green grass lay beneath my feet suddenly, and trees with flower buds and lush leaves reached up to touch a clear blue sky. The edges of a flowing river caught my attention in the distance, and I sifted through my mind for this place and how I knew it—why it looked so familiar.
A moaning filled the silence. It took me only a moment to realize the muffled noise had come from Jet. His face had become contorted with pain and anguish. I watched as he clenched and unclenched his fists. His eyes darted around wildly.
“Why am I here? What purpose does this serve? Shouldn’t I be allowed to leave?” he asked Val in a harsh tone.
And then, I remembered where I had seen this place before… It was the place of Jet’s death, of his murder.
I reached out to place a hand on his forearm in an attempt to comfort him, but a strange sensation coursed through me. I watched as Jet’s eyes remained focused on a log near the river. The rage and suffering I could clearly see he felt emanated off him in steady waves. I could taste it as it coated the inside of my mouth. I swore I could hear Purgatory sigh with relief and pleasure at the taste of Jet’s emotions lingering in the air. The entire scenery surrounding us seemed to dim and flicker in sync with his flaring nostrils as though it had somehow grown attached to him in the mere seconds since the scenery had changed.
“Jet, I—” I was unable to finish my sentence, startled by the sight of him and Val fading out.
Then, they were gone and I was floating through whiteness, clasping my mother’s hand.
PART TWO ~ JET
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I heard Rowan saying my name, but I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t even look at her. Anger was the only thing I could feel. It was the only thing I could think about as Purgatory picked at the box I’d tucked my desire for revenge in long ago. It chipped away at its exterior, releasing my pent up emotions until they threatened to consume me.
“What is this? What’s happening?” I asked Val in a voice that sounded more like a growl than I’d intended.
She smirked at me. “Looks like Purgatory isn’t done having fun yet.”
A burgundy and gray tent appeared a few feet in front of us out of thin air. Then, a campfire and three folding chairs followed. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. This couldn’t be happening. What was the point? Was I too far gone? Had Purgatory latched onto my soul and now I was doomed to be tormented here, at the scene of my death, for eternity?
When I opened my eyes, I saw myself sitting in one of the three chairs. Night had descended and I was passed out. I knew what was about to happen. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to be here. This was insane. Why was I meant to relive this again? Wasn’t once enough?
“Cute friend,” Val said as she made herself comfortable on the ground not too far from where I stood.
“Don’t sit down. Help me find my way back!” The panic swelling within me laced each of my words more than I liked, and I saw it twist her lips into another irritating smirk. She was enjoying this.
“If you were meant to go back, you would have…obviously,” Val paused and gestured around to our new surroundings, “you’re not.”
“No sleeping allowed!” a husky voice I remembered distinctly grunted. The words wrapped around me, each syllable caressing the anger Purgatory seemed hell bent on releasing from inside me, lulling it out further. I closed my eyes, hoping it would be enough to keep it all in. Another grunt made its way to my ears. It echoed through my mind endlessly until I snapped my eyes opened once more.
I watched as I was thrown into the river. My eyes zeroed in on the guy who tossed me, taking note of his twisted smile of satisfaction. His overgrown muscles bulged, and his eyes flashed with power and rage all at once.
Purgatory had won then. At the sight of his enjoyment, all of my anger was released.
My emotions came off me in wisps that visibly danced through the air. The sky darkened, and I couldn’t tell any longer who was fueling whom with rage and torment—me or Purgatory.
Even though my mind told me there was nothing I could do and there was no way to stop what had already happened, my feet still moved forward on their own accord, and my hands still clenched at my sides ready for action. I reached the scene just as my memory-self rushed up the bank from in the water and I was sure my expression matched his precisely—undiluted anger.
I remembered the aggression I felt in that moment—every tiny ounce of it. It congregated around me now, brushing up against my skin, caressing me, urging me to lash out, provoking me to feel what I had kept bottled up for so long.
“This is how you died, isn’t it?” Val asked, her voice sounding strangely soft. Her words were like ice to the flames that licked away at my insides. They dulled everything enough for me to get a grip on reality, to control the fury that had taken hold of me.
I paused, my feet faltering as I realized once again there was nothing I could do to better the situation, nothing I could do to stop it. It had already happened. I knew this. I was a Reaper because of it.
“Yeah,” I whispered, casting a glance over my shoulder at her. She still sat on the grass behind me, but at some point had drawn her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. Her violet eyes no longer flashed, but remained eerily steady as she took in the scene displayed in front of her.
She glanced at me and her dark eyebrows furrowed together in sympathy. “I’m sorry. It must have been a horrible way to die.”
I looked away, allowing my gaze to drop to my shoes as the grunts and sounds of the beating that killed me filled my ears. I didn’t want her pity. I wanted out of here. “Yeah, well, just help me figure out a way to get out of here.”
“I’m so sorry… If I could take it back I would…” someone sobbed. The words seemed louder than anything else as they echoed through this memory, bouncing off the invisible walls and rushing toward me from all angles.
The voice registered somewhere within me. It sounded familiar, but at the same time not. I glanced around, but couldn’t see anyone who the words could have come from.
“It shouldn’t have happened… I’m sorry. How many more times do I have to say it for you to know it’s true?” the same voice pleaded.
I cocked my head to the side as I listened. Glancing around, I realized there was someone who stood off to the side, ankle-deep in the river’s dark water. His hands covered his face, making it impossible for me to determine who it was, but deep down, I knew anyway. I took a few steps forward. My anger seeped back out of the box inside of me, hungry to consume me once more at the sight of him. I was only a few feet away when he removed his hands to bear witness to what he had taken part in—the role he’d played in my death—and I stopped. Everything about him looked the same, just slightly older. This baffled me for a moment.
Jared gazed at the scene playing out before him with swollen eyes. His hands reached up and his fingers entwined within his hair. He began pulling at it and shouting: “I didn’t know… I’m sorry! If I could take it back I would!” His words didn’t echo like the previous ones had, but I knew he was the person who had spoken before. His voice still held the same pleading, desperate tone.
Even seeing him i
n the state he was in, I still had no pity for him, no sympathy whatsoever. If he had to relive this moment a million times over it still wouldn’t be enough punishment for what he had done to me.
“You can’t!” I shouted. My voice sounded like thunder as it echoed through the memory like his had before.
“He can’t hear you,” Val said as a reminder from where she sat. “It’s just the same as Rowan’s mother’s Purgatory. No one can hear you; no one can feel you.”
My hands balled into fists at my sides as I gave in wholly to what Purgatory wanted me to feel. The darkness I had caged inside of me released entirely. I could feel its fire pumping through my veins. My nostrils flared as I gritted my teeth and continued to stare at Jared. I took in the tiny details of his appearance, noticing how, in comparison, he hadn’t aged much between the memory version of himself and his soul that stood before me in his Purgatory.
This simple fact made me smile as I pondered it more, because it meant that he hadn’t been alive much longer after he’d ended my life.
My feet started forward once more. A reddish glow seemed to distort the scenery before me, pulsating rapidly, as the noises from the memory became muffled. A thumping in sync with the reddish glow pounded in my chest the closer I got—a heartbeat. My anger seemed to be giving me life. Curling my bottom lip into the hint of a wicked smile, I continued forward, relishing in the throbbing centered in my chest and the power I felt as the anger surged through me.
“No, how can there be two of you?” Jared asked, a touch of hysteria in his words. “Haven’t I suffered enough?” he cried as he threw his hands toward the sky, as through there was anyone there to listen.
He could see me. It was as though I had broken through some sort of veil that had separated us before. This knowledge excited me.
“No,” I seethed, venom dripping from the word and gliding through the air toward him. “You haven’t suffered at all, not like I have.”
Hereafter (A Reaper Novella) Page 8